Akhenaten created a religious revolution. Something of a maverick pharaoh, he was a monotheist and worshiper of the sin god Aten. But, was he really an idealist, a reformer or a visonary or merely another megalomaniac? ….
—The statues of Akhenaten which are extant show a long, narrow face with pronounced lips, curved upwards as if smiling. His figure shows a somewhat bloated stomach and rather womanly hips. Scholars have wondered throughout the years why a god-king would allow himself to be depicted thus, since his form suggests weakness and/or illness. However, it appears that Akhenaten was confident enough in himself and his powers as king and his marital happiness to allow himself to be depicted exactly as he was, warts and all. This shows a definite change in the rather stultified art forms of the past to a more relaxed and natural art form.
Read More:http://www.examiner.com/article/akhenaten-and-the-art-of-the-amarna-period
He declared monotheism throughout the land. Even Akhenaten’s predecessors in the Eighteenth Dynasty, who had forged Egypt into a worldly, internationally minded power, had never assumed so awesome a stance. But, after a number of years, no more than a dozen at most, it all came to an abrupt end. Akhenaten died, we have no idea how, and Tutankhamon eventually succeeded and the clock was turned decisively back. Aten was forgotten, and Amon was dusted off and resumed his quondam sway. Eventually, about 1349 B.C., an army commander, Haremhab, took over the throne- he may have gained it by marrying into the royal family- and, during a long and vigorous reign, nearly wiped out the traces of these iconoclastic years.
Amenhotep III and his chief wife Queen Tiye. This debonair pharaoh cemented his far flung kingdom with diplomatic marriages and a spate of progeny too numerous to count. Abosrbed in religious reform, Akhenaten would neglect affairs of state, so well managed by his forbears, with disastrous results for the dynasty. Image:http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Colossal_Amenhotep_III_statue.jpg
This was the basic outline, but there has always been a temptation to go further and to make sense out of this strange interlude. James Henry Breasted was convinced that Akhenaten was a “god intoxicated man,” the true father of monotheism, whose prayers were a direct source of Hebrew psalmists. Marxists claimed he was a working man’s king, engaged in a class struggle; an idealistic pharaoh upholding the cause of those under the heel of the establishment.
One side of Akhenaten that has exercised a particular fascination has been the grotesque appearance he made his portraitists record so carefully. Was it pure mannerism on his part to have himself pictured that way? Or did he actually look like that? And, if so, what effect did it have on his ideals, on his chosen activities, since obviously no one of such a physique could possibly cast himself in the role of a conqueror like Thutmose III or a hunter and athlete like Amenhotep II. Doctors point out that there is a pituitary disorder called Frolich’s syndrome that produces symptoms remarkably similar to the features visible in Akhenaten’s portraits: distortion of the skull; excessive growth of the jaw; plumping out of the abdomen, buttocks and thighs; overly slender lower limbs; and infantile genitalia, at times so embedded in fat as to be invisible. This sounds convincing. That is, until we remember that victims of the ailment are impotent, whereas Akhenaten presumably fathered at least six daughters.
—The god Amun (“the hidden one”) first came into prominence at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom. From the New Kingdom onward, Amun was arguably the most important god in the Egyptian pantheon. As a creator god, Amun is most often identified as Amun-Re (in the typical Egyptian blending of deities, Amun is combined with Re, the principal solar god). His main sanctuary was the immense temple complex at Karnak on the east bank of the Nile at the southern edge of modern Luxor.
In this small representation, Amun stands in the traditional pose with the left leg forward. He is identified by his characteristic flat-topped crown, which originally supported two tall gold feathers, now missing. He wears the gods’ braided beard with a curled tip and carries an ankh (“life”) emblem in his left hand and a scimitar across his chest. On pylons and temple walls of the New Kingdom, Amun-Re is often depicted presenting a scimitar to the king, thus conferring on him military victory.
This statuette, cast in solid gold, is an extremely rare example of the sculpture made of precious materials that, according to ancient descriptions, filled the sanctuaries of temples.—Read More:http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/26.7.1412
A few historians, determined to salvage the enticing medical explanation at any price, convinced themselves that, in the reliefs showing Akhenaten fondling his babes, the pharaoh doth protest too much; they suggest that his father, who was still collecting recruits for his harem when well on in years, may have solved his son’s embarrassing position by doing the sexual honors for him. Tobacco Road a la Egyptian.
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